


Energy; Serenity

by malafight



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Hair Brushing, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malafight/pseuds/malafight
Summary: Jasper and Topaz spar for Peridot's benefit, then wind down with a little Jasper spoiling and perfectly G-Rated intimacy. Part shippy, part character exploration. Written for mii-makes-art (tumblr)/MiiMakesArt (twitter).





	Energy; Serenity

**Author's Note:**

> written for [mii-makes-art](http://mii-makes-art.tumblr.com/)/[MiiMakesArt](https://twitter.com/miimakesart) and i had so much fun with this, especially with the jasper headcanons i could work in???

The makeshift battlefield rang with the sound of combat, grunts and huffs and yells and the clashing of weapons. The pair in the ring, behemoths both, met and separated and circled, judged their opponent, met again--

The fusion, Topaz, had her pugil stick, while Jasper, helmet missing out of respect for her opponent’s exposed gems, wielded a sturdy stick of her own, forged in lava by the blacksmith.

Jasper had a wild look in her eyes, and even the taciturn Topaz was active and bright, the both of them huffing and grinning as they clashed.

“Yeah! You’ve got her, Jasper!” Peridot called from the sidelines, jumping around and running to follow the flow of the fight. “Topaz! On your left! No, your other left!”

Both warring gems glanced over at the source of the yelling, a brief pause in their battle, and almost instinctively adjusted their trajectories to allow for a better view. Peridot was flushed and huffy as well, eagerly following her girlfriends’ show.

That’s what it was: a show, put on for Peridot’s benefit, the chance for both warrior gems to exercise and practice while entertaining their tiny gem girlfriend. They thrived on the eager squeaks and excited yelling just as much as the fighting that they were both made for.

Topaz’s movements were defensive, spinning her stick to deflect Jasper’s more aggressive attacks. Neither gave much ground, their motions a give-and-take of control, more dance than battle. Jasper would dive in to attack an opening, only to find Topaz’s weapon spinning upwards and knocking her away. There was little contact outside of their weapons meeting, the clashing of metal on metal more than enough to thrill the excited gem on the sidelines.

Topaz caught one of Jasper’s blows and redirected her power and momentum into stumbling behind her, Topaz grinning and Jasper’s expression one of shock, briefly, before she recovered her balance with a roll and turned to face Topaz once more.

“Don’t let her treat you like that, Jasper!” Peridot yelled, her voice even squeakier in her excitement. “Show her who’s the best quartz on this rock!”

Jasper turned with a grin and raised a thumbs-up in Peridot’s direction before leaping back towards Topaz. Topaz blocked her blow again, but stumbled backwards with the force of it.

“Topaz! You can do it! Don’t let her push you around! Stay steady!”

Topaz had to back up another step to regain her balance, but she flashed Peridot a gleeful grin.

Their dance was back on. Meet, separate, attack, deflect. The sound of weapons clashing sang out across their makeshift battleground, punctuated by Peridot’s excited cheering.

Jasper came in from the left; Topaz whirled and met her with an arcing blow, Jasper’s stick glancing off of hers and necessitating Jasper to jump forward into another roll to keep from losing her balance. Topaz brought her pugil stick spinning around while Jasper turned to face her once more.

The dance grew more complicated as Jasper shifted from holding her staff in the middle to holding the end with both hands, swordlike. She dived forward and let loose a flurry of blows, moving almost too quickly for their spectator to follow. Topaz’s eyes widened and she stumbled backwards, struggling to parry each quick, powerful blow.

The steady  _ smack, smack, smack _ of their weapons meeting echoed in the still air.

“You’ve got her, Jasper! Topaz, don’t give up!!”

Jasper’s furious blows let up as she vaulted backwards, flipping in midair (“Showoff!” Peridot yelled, nonetheless appreciative) and raising a cloud of dust as she touched down, briefly, and then threw herself forward, bringing her staff around with manic purpose.

Topaz brought her own staff up to block, and the resounding  _ crack _ silenced even Peridot.

The dust settled, and the two massive gems were eye-to-eye, panting, their weapons crossed in an attack and responsive block, both of them trembling with the effort as they each tried to push the other away. Jasper looked almost feral, in her element, heart singing a battle cry, while Topaz’s stoic face was tense with effort.

Then, Topaz grinned, giving Jasper pause. The fusion pushed forward to land a quick kiss on Jasper’s gem -- and the massive quartz’s expression changed to pleased surprise, a bright flush crossing her cheeks.

Topaz’s expression then turned smug, and Jasper had no time to react as she spun her weapon free and struck Jasper in the stomach, sending the quartz bouncing across the dusty battlefield.

Peridot let out a gleeful whoop.

“And you’re tied again! 214-214! Jasper, you okay?” Peridot scampered over to the fallen gem, who groaned and sat up, dust covering her body and her hair a huge mess, sticks and leaves and grass stuck willy-nilly in her mane from her tumble. She rubbed her head, a dumb grin on her face as Topaz closed the distance with a sedate smile on her lips.

“Pretty sure that’s cheating,” Jasper said, her grin lopsided and good-natured. Topaz shrugged.

“No rules on the battlefield, remember?” she said before flashing a square-toothed grin.

“That’s fair,” Jasper conceded with a laugh. Topaz offered her hand, which Jasper easily accepted, allowing the fusion to help her up. She started beating the dust off of her jumpsuit and trying to shake some of the mess out of her hair, to no avail.

“You were both great!” Peridot chirped as she bounced around the pair of them. “I love it when you do this! The chance to see such powerful gems, in prime fighting shape…” Peridot was starry-eyed. “I should really be taking notes, but-  _ whooh _ is it more fun to watch or what??”

Jasper glanced over at Topaz and gave a lopsided grin, which the fusion returned, Peridot still milling around the pair and chattering on eagerly. This was most definitely not a new experience; they both were quite used to their high-strung little girlfriend’s excitement, and even found it contagious at times.

Jasper reached down and scooped Peridot up, eliciting a surprised squeak and bubbly laughter from her.

“Lemme down, ya big clod,” Peridot said, squirming, a stupid little smile on her face betraying her attempt at annoyance.

“Don’t wanna,” Jasper grumped, adjusting her grip on the squirmy Peridot. Peridot stopped and huffed, pouting for just a moment before sinking into Jasper’s strong arms and looking up at her, watching as Jasper leaned in close to Topaz and stole a kiss on each of her gems in succession.

“Now we’re even, cheater.”

Topaz flushed and looked away, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.

“Aww, c’mon, don’t be shy,” Jasper taunted, flashing sharp teeth in a grin far too good-natured to ever be mistaken for dangerous. She leaned in close to try to entice the fusion into a kiss, and after a moment, Topaz complied shyly. It was chaste, just a gentle pressure of lips on lips, but they were interrupted by small fists bumping both of them on their chins.

“Um, hello? The Great and Lovable Peridot is being neglected!”

Both giants laughed at the tiny gem between them, but then Jasper lifted her up so that they could both press a kiss to her cheeks. Peridot  _ beamed _ at the attention, giggling and squeaking. Her squeaks became shrieks as Topaz blew a raspberry on her cheek and Jasper just dragged her rough tongue up the side of her face.

“Nooooo!” Peridot whined, wriggling pathetically like some kind of large jumping bean caught between the two of them. “Grossssss, you clods! You big gross clods!!”

Despite her words, Peridot was shrieking with laughter, her wriggling not an attempt to escape at all.

She calmed down after a little while, panting and flushed, and Jasper moved to set her back down. Peridot circled behind her, inspecting her tousled and dirty mass of mane.

“Your hair’s a  _ mess _ ,” she said. Jasper shrugged.

“And whose fault is that?” she said, grinning at Topaz. The fusion returned the grin sheepishly and raised a hand.

“So, she should fix it!”Peridot chirped, then took off scampering away without a word of explanation, leaving the two huge gems confused and alone together. Jasper and topaz looked at each other and raised an eyebrow apiece. Okay. It was Peridot being Peridot, but what was she expecting them to do?

They settled on waiting, sitting down under a tree to rest, sighing and leaning against each other. Jasper closed her eyes and let herself relax with a serene smile; Topaz looked over at her and flushed with emotion, both glad she could provide comfort and calm and grateful that Jasper was able and willing to do the same.

They were content to sit in silence, eyes closed, just enjoying the others’ calming presence; Jasper, especially, found Topaz’s serenity almost intoxicating, after spending so much of her life on edge, in constant fight-or-flight. Just the fact that both gems, meant to fight, could be so  _ calm _ together, so safe as to be able to fight solely for fun and entertainment, not to survive-- just that simple fact would boggle Jasper’s mind, even now, even after being together, being  _ safe _ , for so long…

Peridot came scampering back with a pair of hair brushes in her hands, waving them gleefully and breaking the easy silence between the two resting warriors.

“We’re gonna tame that mane!” she chirped. “C’mon, c’mere, sit down right over here--”

Jasper let herself be moved and arranged, grinning, still smitten by Peridot’s eagerness on a daily basis. Even Topaz, often unreadable, let her guard down around the earnest former techie. Peridot was babbling on about how it was important to keep her luxurious hair clean, how as much as she liked Amethyst, the quartz’s poor hair was always just barely above a nest of briars, how she couldn’t run her fingers through Jasper’s hair it if was snarled up and full of stuff, and how Topaz just didn’t have  _ enough _ hair to run her fingers through…

Even Topaz was pushed and prodded by Peridot into settling down right behind Jasper. Peridot jumped into Topaz’s lap and offered her the larger hairbrush. It was still pitifully small in Topaz’s hand, but she found that it was still relatively usable despite her meaty mitts.

It was Peridot who started the brushing, careful little motions in the bottom half of Jasper’s hair, little tugs to get knots out, short pauses as she worked a twig free or tossed a leaf aside.

Topaz joined her shortly afterwards, her movements clunky and almost uncoordinated, starkly different from the fluid ease with which she wielded her pugil stick. She wasn’t made for detail, wasn’t made for  _ gentle _ . Even Topaz and Topaz, even her separate parts, were rarely so soft with each other, not in a way that civilian gems would categorize as  _ soft _ , at least. Topaz’s gentle was a heavy hand on the head, weighing someone down; a firm grip on the arm, securely holding hands. It wasn’t until Peridot, wasn’t until Jasper, that she was allowed to show proper affection. Kissing was new; it wasn’t that she didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t something she’d ever--  _ considered _ . Topaz and Topaz, even when separated, didn’t allow themselves that kind of closeness. Affection was frowned upon. Affection was  _ weakness _ . And weak warrior gems… weren’t gems for long.

Peridot was who “pulled her out of her shell,” so to speak. Peridot was open and affectionate, eager, easily excited. Peridot wasn’t afraid to  _ feel _ , and wasn’t afraid to show it, either. Sometimes Topaz felt like Peridot was even more fearless than herself -- and that was saying something, given that the only things Topaz really feared were being split up, being shattered, or-- more recently-- losing her girlfriends and being left alone with herself again.

Not that she didn’t like being herself. It was just nice to have someone else to touch, someone to cuddle with, without having to split up.

Neither Peridot nor Jasper seemed interested in becoming part of a more permanent fusion -- stars, neither of them seemed interested in fusing at all, really.

“I’d rather be snug between two giant, beautiful warrior gems,” Peridot had said with a smug grin, like it was the most obvious thing ever. “Maybe one day, but for now? I’d rather be myself between you both than someone else, y’know? I can’t kiss your big dumb faces if we’re a fusion.”

And then Peridot had climbed right up Topaz’s side to smooch one of her gems before hopping over to Jasper to do the same.

It made sense to Topaz. She didn’t mind it, either; having Jasper and Peridot around was comforting, and being able to be herself-- Topaz and Topaz being able to stay together-- was nice, too. They both liked the peace and quiet of each other.

Jasper’s reasoning, though… she was more tight-lipped about hers.

Sometimes she would say different things, give completely different reasons why she didn’t want to fuse.

“I’ve lost myself before.”

“It… might still be contagious.”

“I’ve had enough of fusion.”

“If I try it again, I might…” and she’d always let it trail off there and shake her head.

The one that seemed to hurt Topaz and Peridot the most, though, was just as painful for Jasper.

“I don’t want you to have to deal with my weakness. I don’t want you to know what I’ve done.”

Her voice would often crack when she delivered that excuse.

It wasn’t that Jasper didn’t like fusion. She did. Stars, she did. And that was the problem. She was afraid of being trapped again, despite knowing that Peridot and Topaz would never do anything to hurt her like that. And more than that, more than those memories…

A part of fusion was opening up, becoming one with your partners. And Jasper wasn’t sure she could do that. She didn’t want the gems she loved -- for she did love the both of them -- to know how truly  _ bad _ she really was. She didn’t want them to know her memories, to know what she’d done.

She didn’t want Topaz to know what it was like when she first emerged, in the middle of an attack on the Beta Kindergarten.  _ The _ attack on Beta, rather -- the one that ended in the slaughter of most of her sisters, gems she’d never known, but felt the pain of their loss nonetheless. She didn’t want Topaz to know her fear, or her failure. She’d come out fighting. Her first memories were of burning sunlight and the tumultuous din of clashing sides.

She’d taken the side that her innate knowledge directed her to, and leaped into the fray, cutting through any gem that didn’t have a uniform to match hers. She hadn’t kept count of how many gems whose existence she’d snuffed out that day. She didn’t need to. The tally in the back of her mind was always there.

She’d fought until exhausted, and there were still more enemies to vanquish when the last of her energy left her and she retreated into her gem. She hadn’t been strong enough. Maybe, if she’d kept fighting--

It was her unnatural gem shape that saved her; it looked like she’d already been shattered, and nobody bothered to look deeper.

When she finally gathered the strength to reform, she was alone. The kindergarten had been eerily silent, the red dirt underfoot scattered with shattered gems, enemy and ally alike.

Her first memories were of battle. Her next were of failure. Topaz didn’t need that.

She didn’t want Peridot to know the sorts of things she’d done. Sometimes it still felt like her hands were covered with the fine dust of the gems she’d used them to shatter…

Peridot didn’t  _ need _ to know what she’d done. If she knew-- Jasper was certain she’d never trust her again.

One of her first assignments after she’d been picked up from Beta was to escort an Era I Peridot to check up on a different kindergarten. Things had gone badly -- an off-color had emerged and wrecked the place while they were there.

And the Peridot had gotten cracked.

Jasper could still see the technician’s face in her mind, the abject terror at the realization of what had happened. The instability that took her body.

When she delivered her injured charge back to her Agate, she was cowed, a failure yet again. Worst of all, though-- the Agate had looked at her with a sneer and given an order that made Jasper’s vision go fuzzy and her whole body grow cold.

“Finish the job.”

“You don’t mean--”

“You heard what I said.”

The look on the Peridot’s face as Jasper reached for her gem was one that she would never be able to erase. The feel of the green gemstone shattering in her palm would never leave her.

And Peridot -- her Peridot -- would, from then on out, know just how easily Jasper could destroy her. And the thought of Peridot looking at her with even a hint of fear in her eyes made Jasper feel sick and dizzy and faint.

But, though fusion was out of the question, intimacy wasn’t. And intimacy, gentleness, love-- those were all things Jasper didn’t know she’d been missing until she had them.

The feel of Peridot’s hand in hers, so small -- the way she could feel Topaz’s thick fingers working their way through her messy hair -- curling up on a pile of pillows and blankets and mattresses with Peridot wedged blissfully between them -- she couldn’t imagine, so long ago, that she’d ever be this happy.

And though her mind would tell her that she didn’t deserve this, that one day they’d realize how awful she truly was and leave, they were always there to reassure her that they were here to stay.

The brushing was relaxing, with Peridot chattering on in the background and Topaz grunting affirmatively or interjecting a word here and there.

Peridot loved the feel of Jasper’s hair between her fingers, the coarse strands giving way to her deft touches.  _ Feeling _ was one of the biggest reasons she didn’t really care for fusion. She wanted this sort of closeness, wanted to be able to feel her girlfriends against her, instead of being one with them.

When she told Topaz she’d rather be between them, she wasn’t lying. She didn’t lie. She was patently terrible at it. She really did just… love the touch. Touch wasn’t something that she got much, as a solo technician. When she was around other gems, she’d be working, and even incidental touch was rare.

And with her limb enhancers, she rarely felt anything but the cold metal of her gemtech arms and legs. She couldn’t remember actually touching another gem with her hands, her  _ real _ hands, before her enhancers were destroyed.

So the opportunity to touch was one she’d never pass up. The feeling of Jasper and Topaz under her hands or against her body made a warmth flow through her like nothing she’d ever felt before. She loved it. She loved  _ them _ . And she understood Topaz wanting to stay together, she really did. But touching just seemed so much  _ better _ to her.

Jasper made a little grunting sound when Topaz caught a knot, and the fusion apologized. Jasper waved her hand idly and mumbled something about it being fine, her body relaxed under both of their care.

Topaz wore a relaxed expression of her own, eyes soft and thoughtful as she brushed her way through Jasper’s hair, stopping to work twigs or leaves or grass out and toss them aside. Jasper’s coarse hair moving over her hands and the vaguely wiggling weight of Peridot in her lap was soothing, lulling her into an easy, relaxed state of mind, comfortable and content.

And Jasper, too, was utterly relaxed, utterly content under the care of her two girlfriends. She didn’t have to linger on all of the bad she’d done, all of the good she didn’t deserve-- for now she just had to relax, to feel, to  _ enjoy _ .

Occasionally, Peridot would stop her brushing to lean in and take a deep huff of Jasper’s hair, enjoying the smell and the hazy contact with both girlfriends.

For all they’d done in their lives, every mistake, every failure meant nothing. Every good thing, every reward, none could match up to the lazy happiness of three gems, together and relaxed as the sun began to set red on the horizon.


End file.
